What Others Say: Time to name field at Sanford Stadium in Dooley's honor

By The Savannah Morning News

Thursday

Mar 28, 2019 at 1:23 PMMar 28, 2019 at 1:23 PM

Between the hedges, no Georgia Bulldog has enjoyed more success than Vince Dooley.

One could say Dooley owned the Sanford Stadium field in his 40 years of service. First as head football coach, then as coach and athletic director, and finally as athletic director, Dooley set a standard for excellence at the site.

The time has come to name the playing surface in the coach's honor.

More than 450 Bulldog lettermen, led by Savannah's Kevin Jackson and the great Herschel Walker, want the turf christened Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium. The group has lobbied University of Georgia President Jere Morehead to establish this tribute to Dooley.

"We want to do something good for a great man who has meant so much for the University of Georgia, and we'd like to do it while he's still around," said Jackson, who played on the Bulldogs' defensive line of the early 1980s, including on the 1980 national title winning team. "It's about doing the right thing."

Don't mistake Jackson's sentiments for fears about Dooley's health. He celebrated his 86th birthday last September, but displays the energy of a man decades younger.

His former players, and likely hundreds of thousands of fans who encouraged Dooley's Dogs to "hunker down one more time," simply want to see the university show long overdue recognition of the single greatest influence on Georgia Bulldog football.

What's in a name?

Dooley took off his hobnailed boots 15 years ago.

He retired as Georgia's athletic director in 2004, four decades after coming to the school as the head football coach. On the field, he won 201 games, six Southeastern Conference titles and a national championship.

The stadium expanded eight times during his tenure, growing from 35,000 seats to more than 92,000. The increased demand for seating is testament enough to Dooley's contributions.

Some have even advocated for expanding the stadium's name to include Dooley's. A push for Dooley-Sanford Stadium swept the state five years ago, with proponents pointing to hyphenated titles at several other SEC venues, such as Mississippi (Vaught-Hemingway), Auburn (Jordan-Hare), Alabama (Bryant-Denny) and South Carolina (Williams-Brice).

That campaign sputtered and died, however, out of respect for the stadium's namesake, Steadman V. Sanford. As the school's longtime faculty chairman of athletics, he championed its construction.

Sanford Stadium opened in October 1929, three years before Sanford was named University of Georgia president.

Dooley may have led expansion efforts, but it was Sanford who built the original venue.

An indisputable legacy

Adding Dooley's name to the grass rather than the stadium face is an acceptable compromise.

Christening the playing surface in honor of a coaching great is a fitting tribute elsewhere. Duke's Cameron Indoor Stadium is home to Coach K Court. Same for Syracuse's Carrier Dome and Jim Boeheim Court.

And while most red-and-black fans would rather not acknowledge it, the University of Florida's Ben Hill Stadium includes Steve Spurrier-Florida Field.

For Dooley Field at Sanford Stadium to become a reality, first the university president and then the Board of Regents must give their blessing.

UGA's current leader, Morehead, has been inundated with correspondence in support of the move. Even the Savannah area's local congressman, Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Georgia 1), sent a letter.

In making the case for Dooley, Carter playfully pointed to Dooley's one fault: he attended Auburn, not Georgia. Carter labeled the Alabama native's choice of college as a "youthful indiscretion."

Dooley's name is certainly more synonymous with Georgia than Auburn. His legacy is stained red and black, not burnt orange and blue.

We encourage the university president and Board of Regents to paint Dooley's name on the stadium field this year.

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